Monday, 9 September 2013

In Barcelona, 1 = 3 (or 2, depending)

The last leg of my trip is to Barcelona for three days, whence to Paris by TGV.

The instructions for finding my hostal – which is not a hostel, but a small hotel occupying one or two floors in a larger building – gave the address and said "first floor".  Good news, as I have two suitcases.

The first problem was that there is no sign on the street to show the name of the establishment.  A helpful person leaving the building confirmed I was in the right place.  Next I hauled my two cases up the stairs to the first floor, dripping sweat all the way.  Except the first floor up is called entresol not "first floor".  So I huffed and puffed up to the next level, which is called principal.  The next one up – that's street level plus three – is the primera planta or "first floor".

Of course, this is not consistent; the next place I went to had no principal, so the first floor was only on the second floor, not the third floor.  Are you following?

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